


Burden

by Torpi (orphan_account)



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Cuddling, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Torpi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perceptor doubts himself after being ambushed by the swarm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burden

**Author's Note:**

> A weak attempt at angst. I really need to work more in this genre.

His lips trembled against someone else’s plating as a surge of discomfort radiated from his injured side, the depressors keep the blinding pain down to little more than a dull ache. He onlined his optics, taking note of the pale white light that they emitted as it shined on the white plating his head rested against. He was in system shock. It helped to explain the distant feeling he felt between his processor and his plating. The depressor’s he had been given weren’t strong enough to be making him feel this out of it. 

Despite his best efforts he must have made some noise because the plating beneath his cheek shifted slightly and a black hand reached up towards his face. He didn’t bother moving, watching as the hand approached only to pause just shy of touching him. It held its position, only the digits shifting slightly as if playing with the light coming off his optics. The hand drew away again to go back to resting idly on a sword hilt on the mech’s opposite side.

“Did I wake you?” Drift asked in a soft voice, the sound seeming to vibrate out of the plating into his audio.

“No,” he ran his glossa over his lip components and attempted to sit up. “How long have we been stationary?”

“Relax,” Drift soothed, easily pulling the mech back against his side. “We’ve been here less than a cycle. You need time to rest, Perceptor. Don’t worry, let the rest of us worry about when to get moving again.”

Perceptor couldn’t do more then put up a token resistance even if he was at optimal operating parameters. He knew full well that Drift could easily force him to lay back down with minimum effort on his part. However, the swordmech merely used his arm as a bar against Perceptor’s side, allowing the sniper to bump ineffectively against it. After three failed attempts to get back up, Perceptor sighed and reclined back against Drift’s side. The mech allowed him to settle again before carefully shifting his arm down and draping it loosely over Perceptor’s waist, just below the heavily applied patch that Blaster had put on no more than three cycles ago.

Perceptor huffed slightly out of his vents as he relaxed, letting his head settle back in its previous resting place against Drift’s shoulder. His optics roamed over the shattered building they were in, taking in the partial collapsed roof and twisted girders with the clinical eye of a scientist and engineer trying to note any stress points that might indicate another collapse. He didn’t see any. He did take note that the destroyed shelving against the walls and the single battered counter indicated that they were in the shell of a bombed out store. 

“I don’t,” he started pausing when he noticed a shadow outside the shop’s broken window move. He waited a klik until his processor identified the shadow as Springer before he continued. “I don’t remember how we got here.”

Drift’s frame had tensed slightly at the shadow as well before relaxing again. “Doesn’t surprise me,” Drift said, the hand on the hilt barely relaxing at all. “You were pretty out of it before we left where you were ambushed.”

That Perceptor remembered or at least brief flashes of it. He had jumped up onto the roof half demolished building hoping to use it to better his position and give him a wide range over the battlefield. What he had neglected to do was secure all access onto the roof. It was a stupid mistake that had nearly cost him his spark.

He had been in the process of lining up another shot when pain exploded in his side. At first he had screamed more in shock but, as the plating buckled and hoses and wires were rented, the pitch changed and he howled in pain. He struggled violently, forgetting about his rifle until after his wild thrashing had already knocked it off the edge of the roof. The creature was undeterred by his attempts to free himself. In what was a wild, uncoordinated flailing of his limbs, he had somehow managed to torque himself from the creature’s mouth and right off the edge of the building.

He barely had a chance to realize he was falling before he hit the rumble strewn ground and everything went pixelated and his audio feed was reduced to static. He was immobilized, unable to even formulate a straight process let alone scramble for his hand gun. It took him too long to realize this and even then all he could do was feel a wave of sheer terror erupting from his spark at the thought of being helpless on a battlefield. 

It was the not quiet touch that breezed over the back of his helmet that helped to calm him slightly. A whisper of movement and the pixelated form of Drift danced into his optical range, slashing at a Swarm that he hadn’t even realized was approaching him. He watched as Drift stepped out of the range of its counterattack, a flash of steel was all it took for the creature to crumble at his peds, and Drift was moving again to intercept another one. He wanted to get up and help but he couldn’t seem to do anything but lay there in a stupor as Drift and the rest of the Wreckers fought around him. Protecting him from his own folly.

Again.

He huffed at himself, ignoring Drift who shifted slightly as if to look down at him. This was the second time he had nearly cost the team everything. He had wanted to help with the rescue. He had even argued with Kup for almost a cycle to go onto Turmoil’s ship with the rest of the crew, only to have Kup’s prediction come true. He was shot, a gaping hole blown right through his chassis by Turmoil’s cannon. He should have deactivated but Drift had come careening around the corner, scooping him up as if he was made of the finest Praxian Crystals, and jumping from the entry they had made in the side of the ship when they had first boarded before the ship had exploded. He had saved him then and he had saved him now when it was rapidly becoming apparent to Perceptor that he never should have left the Kimia in the first place.

“Are you alright?” Drift asked, lightly stroking over the undamaged metal of his hip as if to comfort him.

However, there was no comfort to be had. “I’m fine,” he answered in a clipped tone, trying to sink back into his self-incrimination. 

Drift hummed knowingly, the plating under Perceptor’s cheek vibrating slightly as Drift’s digit’s lightly feathered over the span of his hip. “You don’t sound fine,” he whispered, shifting enough so that Perceptor felt himself pressed more firmly against the swordmech’s side. The heat being expelled from his frame felt soothing against Perceptor’s straining systems and he couldn’t help but sigh. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Perceptor frowned down at the hand curled around the hilt of the sword, ready to leap to his defense if need be. Even now, he was a liability. The group should be moving to make it harder for the Swarm to locate them rather than wasting time allowing him to rest. He was a burden. He never should have been removed from Turmoil’s ship.

“Perceptor?” Drift sat up a little straighter and he released the sword to take a hold of Perceptor’s chin, tilting it up enough so that they were looking each other in the optics. “Are you alright?”

What could he say? What did he want to say? There was nothing but the honest truth. “I’m still just a burden,” he half growled up at Drift, angry at his own failings and weaknesses.

“Burden?” Was all Drift managed to say as Perceptor cut him off.

“Like back on Turmoil’s ship, like during that fight, like right now,” he jerked his chin free from Drift’s grip as he snarled. “I have been a burden to everyone since I left Kimia. I should have stayed put and not blinded myself with the false implications that I could make a difference in this war.”

“Percy,” Drift whispered as Perceptor twisted his head enough to look off at the far wall of the store. Drift’s hand came around to cup his cheek and Perceptor tossed his head, dislodging it. He didn’t deserve comfort for his own mistakes. “Percy, please, look at me.”

The pleading words and tone caused him to look up into optics barely an astroinch from his, their nasal ridges nearly touching. “You are not a burden,” Drift said with such conviction it momentarily stalled all his processes.

His process trees started anew barely a klik later, “But-“

Drift’s hand caught the back of his helmet in a firm grip that was boarder line painful. “You are not,” he growled in a low, dangerous voice that sounded nothing like Drift normally did. Perceptor briefly wonder if he should be worried for his safety and then immediately felt guilty for even thinking that. Drift would never hurt him. “A burden,” he finished before tugging Perceptor’s helmet the astroinch or two closer and crashing their lips together in a crushing kiss.

The kiss was brutally but on some level Perceptor knew he needed it to be harsh. Drift arm tightened around his waist, almost negligent of the still tender wound in his side, as he possessively explored the interior of Perceptor’s mouth with his glossa. Perceptor whimpered against him and tried futilely to pull away but Drift merely held him still, his engine all but growling. It wasn't until Perceptor began to relax that the crushing hold on him loosened and the kiss softened. The growl died down as Drift’s engine returned to idling softly and the kiss became tender enough that Perceptor could feel something tighten and constrict his spark’s rhythmic pulse. He took a shuddering intake -realizing he was trembling slightly- as Drift lips left his and he nuzzled the side of Perceptor’s helmet before whispering softly in his audio.

“Who would have been there to monitor Kup after he left Kimia with the Springer to ensure he didn't have a processor crash or a flash back? Who would have bought us the time to free the prisoners by layering encryption keys on the door lock? Who would have had the foresight to know that we would need a sniper in the future and rebuilt most of their primary systems to fulfill that role? Who would have taken out Monstuctor? Who would have thought to scale that building and use it as a way to increase their range?”

“Drift…” he whined.

“Answer me, Percy,” his tone was edged with hardness but still comforting.

“Me,” Perceptor whispered sinking into Drift’s chest as if he could somehow escape what he had just said.

“Exactly,” Drift nuzzled his helm again before his hand pulled Perceptor away from his chest plates enough to kiss him softly again. The back of Drift’s digits stroked down his cheek as they stared into each other’s optics, “You are not a burden Perceptor, and you’re not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes now and then. Don’t hold yourself to a set of standards that are impossible to reach.” Drift’s lips brushed his forehead, “Now rest. You’re safe with me.”

He still wanted to argue, to prove to Drift how wrong he was, but he couldn’t seem to say anything after that. It was as if his entire thought process on his own failings had simply deleted themselves and left him with nothing but a drained empty feeling as the tightness in his spark seemed to just melt away. They moved silently together, settling exactly as they had been before Drift felt the need to remind him of his own worth. Drift’s digits tracing along the seams on his hip as the other settled again on the sword hilt. Perceptor slid his hand across Drift’s stomach to rest on the hand holding the sword hilt while he twisted his other up from between them to take the hand tracing lines on his hip.

It was the only thing he trusted himself to do so that the tightness didn’t come back to strangle him.

Drift’s hand stopped tracing seams and twined around his and he knew if he looked up Drift would be smiling down at him.

That was all it took from him to relax against the swordmech and slip off into a peaceful recharge with a small smile of his own on his lip plates.


End file.
